Welcome To UConn's Conference: Houston Excited About AAC

Houston, SMU and Memphis are newcomers to UConn's conference, The American, which is otherwise made up of former Big East schools. The Courant will look at all three football programs over the next few days.

Two seasons ago, Houston was a win away from potentially earning a BCS bowl bid. Instead, Southern Miss upset the undefeated Cougars on their home field in the Conference USA championship game and Houston had to settle for the TicketCity Bowl.

Before the bowl game, coach Kevin Sumlin left for the Texas A&M job and Tony Levine was promoted to coach. He led the Cougars to a 30-14 bowl win over Penn State, but that was record-setting quarterback Case Keenum's last game. Keenum, now in the NFL with the Houston Texans, completed 428 passes for 5,631 yards and 48 TDs in 2011, the third time in his career with the Cougars that he had surpassed 5,000 yards in a season. With Keenum gone, there was a lot to make up for; Levine's first year as coach ended with a 5-7 record.

"We came off a 13-1 season where we beat Penn State and ended the 2011 season ranked in the top 15 of the nation," Levine said at Tuesday's media day in Newport, R.I. "What we're trying to do is build a consistent year-in-and-year-out winning program, competing for championships, going to bowl games. It's a little bit what we lost in the transition. ... I don't like using the word rebuilding, but we had some youth playing for us last year."

Offensive coordinator Mike Nesbitt resigned after the first game and cornerback D.J. Hayden, the No. 12 pick of the Oakland Raiders, missed the final three games due to a near-fatal heart injury in practice.

Cornerback Zach McMillian said a lack of depth last season led to losses.

"It had a lot to do with the fact that we didn't develop the depth of our youngest guys," he said. "We needed a lot of guys to play and we couldn't find them. As far as problems, I think we've corrected that, really working with our freshman and developing our depth."

Since last season, leading rusher Charles Sims (860 yards) has transferred to West Virginia and top receiver Dewayne Peace (54 receptions, 603 yards) was ruled ineligible and is no longer with the program. Sophomore running back Kenneth Farrow was the second-leading rusher with 477 yards on 86 carries. David Piland (2,929 passing yards) and Crawford Jones (972) split time at quarterback. Houston returns many top receivers, including Deontay Greenberry (47 receptions for 569 yards) and Dan Spencer (41, 579) from an offense that ranked 33rd in the nation in 2012.

"As far as the locker room, we all know the amount of talent we have on our team and we believe in the players who are here now," McMillian said. "We wish the best for the ones that left and the decision they made, but right now we really like the team we have and the newcomers we have."

Houston, which opens against Southern on Aug. 30 and won't play UConn until next season, is happy to be a part of the American Athletic Conference.

"We're excited because we get to play some really quality teams," said offensive tackle Rowdy Harper.

Despite the conference change, Houston's recruiting pipeline, for the most part, remains unchanged.

"Because we live in the state of Texas and the football is so good down there, moving east, all of a sudden we're not going to get on an airplane to New York or Connecticut and start recruiting there," Levine said. "It probably helps those schools more coming down to Texas with Houston and SMU joining. It does help us with exposure, to have an ESPN contract, play on national TV. ... The exposure is helping us with recruits and talking about being in a BCS conference this season helped the last two classes come together tremendously."

Robertson Stadium was demolished in the offseason and a new on-campus stadium is expected to open in time for the 2014 season. The Cougars will play five home games at the Texans' Reliant Stadium, one at BBVA Compass Stadium, home of the MLS/ Houston Dynamo, and one at Rice Stadium.

The new stadium, at a cost of $105 million, will seat about 40,000 but can be expanded to 50,000. It will have synthetic turf.

"As far as having a home field advantage, I take the attitude that Rowdy has, which is we'll play anybody even if it's in the parking lot," McMillian said." We develop that chip on our shoulder wherever [we] play."

Levine realizes that the playing-site sacrifice must be made, that in the end a new stadium will mean so much to everyone: fans, players and recruits.

"It's going to disrupt things more for our ticket manager than it is for our coaches and student-athletes," Levine said." It's going to inconvenience where everybody is sitting more than us. The field dimensions will be the same, our kids will show up to play and it's a small price to pay, in our opinion, for what's to come."